Tag: Michael McDonald

After a six week hiatus that threatened to drive UFC fans worldwide into their nearest mental asylum, UFC 145 came back with a fury, providing us with all the sweet KO’s, slick submissions, and classic scraps that we have come to know and love. And now that the storm has passed, we must look to the future for those involved in what was a fantastic night of fights. As always, we’ll take a look at the must-make match-ups for Saturday’s biggest winners, and maybe even a couple of the losers, because they’re people too, we guess.

Let’s get right to it…

Travis Browne- If not for Chad Griggs’ incredible chin, “Hapa” could have just as easily walked away with a Knockout of the Night bonus for that beautiful double flying knee. That being said, Browne was awarded Submission of the Night for only his second career submission victory, and looked like a Jiu-Jitsu whiz while doing so. Browne has steamrolled through most of his opponents, and if the heavyweight division wasn’t so tongue tied at the moment, I would have a long list of potential opponents for the Hawaiian. But Browne has age on his side and would fight tomorrow if you asked him to, so I’m thinking he should step up and fill the vacancy “Bigfoot” Silva left against Roy Nelson. Browne has a month to keep fit and a win over a name like “Big Country” on relatively short notice would ensure his top tier status.

Ok, let’s get right to the cheddar – the UFC 145 fight bonuses, which UFC President Dana White announced during the post-event presser (video of entire press conference below). It always warms the heart when the fighters who get the big bonus checks are not the big stars, and that’s what happened at UFC 145.

Ben Rothwell, Travis Browne, Mark Hominick and Eddie Yagin all earned an extra $65,000 for their efforts Saturday night in Atlanta, GA. Rothwell got the KO of the night for his come-from-behind stoppage of Brendan Schaub. Browne got the night’s only submission but it was still a good one – forcing Chad Griggs to tap out to an arm triangle choke.

Eddie Yagin and Mark Hominick both took home fight of the night honors for their back and forth war. Yagin also took home the win bonus for earning the split-decision win over the former featherweight #1 contender.

The Immortal beats The Karate Kid and GSP-lite continues to impress

Matt Brown took a little steam out of the home town Karate Kid Stephen Thompson with a unanimous decision win. Thompson burst onto the UFC scene with a nifty lead leg KO at UFC 143. Brown has a toughness that his win to loss ratio doesn’t necessarily reveal, and a win over a top prospect like Thompson helps “The Immortal” get back on the slow climb up in the welterweight division.

Staying in the welterweight division for a moment, Rory MacDonald continued to prove that he is the division’s brightest young star

At long last, we’re finally going to find out if watchingJon Jones and Rashad Evans fight is as entertaining as discussing it. The two light-heavyweight rivals — who sport similar haircuts, completely by coincidence — will settle their beef at the end of tonight’s UFC 145 main card, backed by a supporting lineup that includes Rory MacDonald vs. Che Mills, Brendan Schaub vs. Ben Rothwell, and Miguel Torres vs. Michael McDonald.

Live, round-by-round results from the UFC 145: Jones vs. Evans pay-per-view broadcast will be collecting after the jump starting at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT, courtesy of CagePotato flyweight liveblog champ Aaron Mandel. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and let us know your thoughts in the comments section. Now take our hand, Constant Reader, and follow us into the abyss…

Another thing of note: Despite weighing in just under the heavyweight limit, Ben Rothwell looked to be in way better shape than we’ve seen in the past. Will it help him come fight night? Probably not, but we can all dream.

The time for talk is up. For over a year now, we’ve watched as Jon Jones and Rashad Evans’ relationship has deteriorated from training partners willing to fake injury to avoid fighting one another, to bitter enemies just waiting for the chance to beat the other into a living death. Is all the personal heat real? Can these two bury the hatchet after the fight? We’ll find out soon enough, but either way, this has all the makings of a can’t miss war that will not soon be forgotten. All signs point to a decisive victory for “Bones” in ATL tomorrow night, but as we all know, anything can happen in a fight. So join me as I break down all the main card fights taking place at UFC 145 and give you my street-certified predictions.

Jon Jones (15-1, 9-1 UFC) vs. Rashad Evans (17-1-1, 12-1-1 UFC)

At only 24 years old, Jones has already been in more title fights(3) than the 32 year-old Evans(2). So clearly, Jones should not be intimidated, for he is battle-tested and has proven himself worthy of carrying that UFC Light Heavyweight belt. And not only has Jones taken out three former UFC champions in his last three fights, he has done so in devastating fashion. In his last fight, Jones dropped Lyoto Machida (a.k.a the man who made Rashad do the cross-eyed stanky leg) face down on the mat after choking him unconscious. That type of win has to make Jones feel good going into his fight with Rashad.

While Jones comes into Saturday night riding a stratospheric surge of momentum, Rashad enters this fight following an unceremonious, workmanlike decision victory over Phil Davis at UFC on Fox in January. However, there are many positives to take away from that victory, the first of which being the decisive, dominant manner in which Rashad managed to defeat a very talented prospect in Davis. “Suga” overcame a significant reach disadvantage (like he will face with Jones) to close the gap and effectively control Davis with his superior wrestling and ground game. Second, Rashad finally had the chance to prove that he could go the full five rounds, and imposed his will on “Mr. Wonderful” from the start of round 1 to the end of the fifth. Most of the Potato Nation seems to agree that his fight with Jones will likely be a knock down, drag out war that tests the will, strength, and cardiac endurance of both men, so it’s good to know that Rashad will be able to keep up with Jones if the fight makes it into the championship rounds. Finally, Rashad demonstrated that once he gets his opponent down on the mat, he can do some serious damage. So even if Rashad may not be able to stand and trade with Jones, he at least knows that if he can get Jones down, his chances of grinding out a victory significantly increase.

Join us after the jump for more on Jones/Evans, as well as a break down of all of the main card’s match-ups.

(Don’t worry, we put more effort into this piece than the UFC marketing department did into that poster.)

Rumor has it that on Saturday night, two certain somebodies may or may not partake in a certain fight that you may or may not be able to place a certain wager on, which may or may not be dependent on whether you think or don’t think you know a certain outcome of the fight itself, capiche? In either case, we are going to offer some advice that may or may not help you arrive at that determination. Check out what could hypothetically be the betting lines for UFC 145, courtesy of BestFightOdds, below, and follow us after the jump for what may or may not be our advice on where to place a certain bet that may or may not exist.

(A preview of Gustafsson’s placement on the list? There’s only one way to find out.)

A great man once said that geology was the study of pressure and time. That man’s name was Red, and although he was simply using the phrase as a metaphor for prison life, he could’ve just as easily been talking about hype. Because hype, not unlike geology, has the ability to form diamonds from coal, and just as easily crush the greatest boulders into dust.

As MMA fans, we know the hype game more than any; if we’re not prematurely declaring it “The_____Era,” then we’re likely discrediting legends of the sport, even going as far to say that their wins never held any validity in the first place. Sounds insane, doesn’t it? Well, welcome to the world of cyberhype, the deadliest, fastest spreading strand of hype there is. And as with Kei$ha and CSI spin-offs, there is little we can do to stop this disease, so instead we’ll just try and act like we were into it before it got popular.

Here are five of the hottest prospects in the UFC, ranked in order of how long we knew about them before you did.

There isn’t much we can say about Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson that his kickboxing and MMA records don’t. The man has strung together 63 consecutive wins in mixed competition, most recently starching Daniel Stittgen ^ at UFC 143. The hype surrounding Thompson has been overlooked by some, and will be put to the test when he takes on TUF 7 vet Matt Brown at UFC 145.

There is a Russian proverb that roughly goes, “He that is afraid of bad luck will never know good.” And it is a rare bit of good sense from our Russki comrades; we should not live in fear of things beyond our control like luck, but rather have the confidence in ourselves to believe that our hard work will eventually pay off, be it in fame, fortune, or fiine women. But for every bit of good luck we have, some poor sap out there has a much, much worse day because of it. Like the Mortal Kombat tournaments, these gentlemen’s misfortunes are necessary to maintain the order between realms, so it is to these brave souls that we pay tribute.

We’re talking about those guys who just happened to be on the losing side of a future champion’s debut, or got crushed before they could even get their footing. We’re talking about guys who put their hearts and souls into a sport for years, only to have their debut in the sport’s highest promotion be overshadowed by someone that was just on another level.

So, without further ado, here are the six unluckiest sons of bitches that the UFC has ever seen.

How it went down: Let us start with the most recent. Before entering the octagon, Alex Soto was 6-0-1 over local to mid-level competition. Mcdonald, on the other hand, was a 13-1 fighter out of California that had split a pair of contests with former WEC featherweight champion Cole Escovedo, and had scored wins over legitimate UFC competition in Edwin Figueroa and Chris Cariaso. On paper, it was going to be a tough debut for Mr. Soto. In the flesh, it was actually much, much tougher.

An undisclosed injury has forced the postponement of Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto’s second Octagon appearance at UFC 130 next month. Stepping in for the highly-regarded Japanese bantamweight to face Chris Cariaso will be California native Michael McDonald.